NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has resigned effective immediately amid concerns about several extramarital affairs, including one with someone who’s suspected to be a Chinese spy.
An investigation is ongoing when it comes to the latter, but for now, Huang has stepped down and been replaced by Colette Kress, NVIDIA’s current executive vice president and chief financial officer in an interim basis.
“NVIDIA’s strength has always come from its people, and together with our leadership team, I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years,” said Kress in a statement. “We will continue advancing the work that has made NVIDIA a leader in accelerated computing and AI, and execute on the opportunities ahead. Our focus remains on serving our customers, partners, developers and shareholders.”
Unsurprisingly, NVIDIA stock dropped about 23 percent this morning as concerns about the company’s stability expectedly linger, on top of a massive plunge in AI stocks last week in the wake of the US elections.
“Colette has helped lead NVIDIA through a period of extraordinary growth and has a deep understanding of our business, customers, operations and financial position,” said Harvey Jones, Chair of the NVIDIA Board of Directors, of the interim CEO. “She is supported by an experienced leadership team that has been instrumental in executing NVIDIA’s strategy and advancing its technology roadmap. The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team, and we expect the company’s operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption.”
How will this affect gamers? It’s unclear for now, but the balance of power in the tech industry could shift towards other companies powering the AI bubble like AMD and OpenAI. Either way, pardon my lack of optimism that this is going to change anything or make the price of GPUs suddenly drop to an affordable rate.
